PEER

  Who goes there? A priest with a fowling-net!

  Hei, hop! I’m the spoilt child of fortune indeed!

  Good evening, Herr Pastor! the path is bad——

  THE LEAN ONE

  Ah yes; but what wouldn’t one do for a soul?

  PEER

  Aha! then there’s some one bound heavenwards?

  THE LEAN ONE

  No;

  I hope he is taking a different road.

  PEER

  May I walk with Herr Pastor a bit of the way?

  THE LEAN ONE

  With pleasure; I’m partial to company.

  PEER

  I should like to consult you——

  THE LEAN ONE

  Heraus!113 Go ahead!

  PEER

  You see here before you a good sort of man.

  The laws of the state I have strictly observed,

  Have made no acquaintance with fetters or bolts;—

  But it happens at times that one misses one’s footing

  And stumbles——

  THE LEAN ONE

  Ah yes; that occurs to the best of us.

  PEER

  Now these trifles you see——

  THE LEAN ONE

  Only trifles?

  PEER

  Yes;

  From sinning en gros I have ever refrained.

  THE LEAN ONE

  Oh then, my dear fellow, pray leave me in peace;—

  I’m not the person you seem to think me.—

  You look at my fingers? What see you in them?

  PEER

  A nail-system somewhat extremely developed.

  THE LEAN ONE

  And now? You are casting a glance at my feet?

  PEER [Pointing.]

  That’s a natural hoof?

  THE LEAN ONE

  So I flatter myself.

  PEER [Raises his hat.]

  I’d have taken my oath you were simply a parson;

  And I find I’ve the honour——. Well, best is best;—

  When the hall door stands wide,—shun the kitchen way;

  When the king’s to be met with,—avoid the lackey.

  THE LEAN ONE

  Your hand! You appear to be free from prejudice.

  Say on then, my friend; in what way can I serve you?

  Now you mustn’t ask me for wealth or power;

  I couldn’t supply them although I should hang for it.

  You can’t think how slack the whole business is;—

  Transactions have dwindled most pitiably.

  Nothing doing in souls; only now and again

  A stray one——

  PEER

  The race has improved so remarkably?

  THE LEAN ONE

  No, just the reverse; it’s sunk shamefully low;—

  The majority end in a casting-ladle.

  PEER

  Ah yes—I have heard that ladle mentioned;

  In fact, ’twas the cause of my coming to you.

  THE LEAN ONE

  Speak out!

  PEER

  If it were not too much to ask,

  I should like——

  THE LEAN ONE

  A harbour of refuge? eh?

  PEER

  You’ve guessed my petition before I have asked.

  You tell me the business is going awry;

  So I daresay you will not be over-particular.

  THE LEAN ONE

  But, my dear——

  PEER

  My demands are in no way excessive.

  I shouldn’t insist on a salary;

  But treatment as friendly as things will permit.

  THE LEAN ONE

  A fire in your room?

  PEER

  Not too much fire;—and chiefly

  The power of departing in safety and peace,—

  The right, as the phrase goes, of freely withdrawing

  Should an opening offer for happier days.

  THE LEAN ONE

  My dear friend, I vow I’m sincerely distressed;

  But you cannot imagine how many petitions

  Of similar purport good people send in,

  When they’re quitting the scene of their earthly activity.

  PEER

  But now that I think of my past career,

  I feel I’ve an absolute claim to admission——

  THE LEAN ONE

  ’Twas but trifles, you said——

  PEER

  In a certain sense;

  But, now I remember, I’ve trafficked in slaves——

  THE LEAN ONE

  There are men that have trafficked in wills and souls,

  But who bungled it so that they failed to get in.

  PEER

  I’ve shipped Bramah-figures in plenty to China.

  THE LEAN ONE

  Mere wish-wash again! Why, we laugh at such things.

  There are people that ship off far gruesomer figures

  In sermons, in art, and in literature,

  Yet have to stay out in the cold——

  PEER

  Ah, but then,

  Do you know—I once went and set up as a prophet!

  THE LEAN ONE

  In foreign parts? Humbug! Why most people’s Sehen

  Ins Blaue114 ends in the casting-ladle.

  If you’ve no more than that to rely upon,

  With the best of good will, I can’t possibly house you.

  PEER

  But hear this: In a shipwreck—I clung to a boat’s keel,—

  And it’s written: A drowning man grasps at a straw,—

  Furthermore it is written: You’re nearest yourself,—

  So I half-way divested a cook of his life.

  THE LEAN ONE

  It were all one to me if a kitchen-maid

  You had half-way divested of something else.

  What sort of stuff is this half-way jargon,

  Saving your presence? Who, think you, would care

  To throw away dearly-bought fuel, in times

  Like these, on such spiritless rubbish as this?

  There now, don’t be enraged; ’twas your sins that I scoffed at;

  And excuse my speaking my mind so bluntly.—

  Come, my dearest friend, banish this stuff from your head,115

  And get used to the thought of the casting-ladle.

  What would you gain if I lodged you and boarded you?

  Consider; I know you’re a sensible man.

  Well, you’d keep your memory; that’s so far true;—

  But the retrospect o’er recollection’s domain

  Would be, both for heart and for intellect,

  What the Swedes call “Mighty poor sport”116 indeed.

  You have nothing either to howl or to smile about;

  No cause for rejoicing nor yet for despair;

  Nothing to make you feel hot or cold;

  Only a sort of a something to fret over.

  PEER

  It is written: It’s never so easy to know

  Where the shoe is tight that one isn’t wearing.

  THE LEAN ONE

  Very true; I have—praise be to so-and-so!—

  No occasion for more than a single odd shoe.

  But it’s lucky we happened to speak of shoes;

  It reminds me that I must be hurrying on;—

  I’m after a roast that I hope will prove fat;

  So I really mustn’t stand gossiping here.—

  PEER

  And may one inquire, then, what sort of sin-diet

  The man has been fattened on?

  THE LEAN ONE

  I understand

  He has been himself both by night and by day,

  And that, after all, is the principal point.

  PEER

  Himself? Then do such folks belong to your parish?

  THE LEAN ONE

  That depends; the door, at least, stands ajar for them.

  Remember, in two ways a man can be

  Himself—there’s a right and wrong side to the jacket.

  You know they have lately discovered in Paris

  A way to take portraits by help of the sun.

  One can either produce a straightforward picture,

  Or else what is known as a negative one.

  In the latter the lights and the shades are reversed,

  And they’re apt to seem ugly to commonplace eyes;

  But for all that the likeness is latent in them,

  And all you require is to bring it out.

  If, then, a soul shall have pictured itself

  In the course of its life by the negative method,

  The plate is not therefore entirely cashiered,—

  But without more ado they consign it to me.

  For ulterior treatment I take it in hand,

  And by suitable methods effect its development.

  I steam it, I dip it, I burn it, I scour it,

  With sulphur and other ingredients like that,

  Till the image appears which the plate was designed for,—

  That, namely, which people call positive.

  But for one who, like you, has smudged himself out,

  Neither sulphur nor potash avails in the least.

  PEER

  I see; one must come to you black as a raven

  To turn out a white ptarmigan? Pray what’s the name

  Inscribed ’neath the negative counterfeit

  That you’re now to transfer to the positive side?

  THE LEAN ONE

  The name’s Peter Gynt.

  PEER

  Peter Gynt? Indeed?

  Is Herr Gynt himself?

  THE LEAN ONE

  Yes, he vows he is.

  PEER

  Well, he’s one to be trusted, that same Herr Peter.

  THE LEAN ONE

  You know him, perhaps?

  PEER

  Oh yes, after a fashion;—

  One knows all sorts of people.

  THE LEAN ONE

  I’m pressed for time;

  Where saw you him last?

  PEER

  It was down at the Cape.

  THE LEAN ONE

  Di Buona Speranza?117

  PEER

  Just so; but he sails

  Very shortly again, if I’m not mistaken.

  THE LEAN ONE

  I must hurry off then without delay.

  I only hope I may catch him in time!

  That Cape of Good Hope—I could never abide it;—

  It’s ruined by missionaries from Stavanger.

  [He rushes off southwards.]

  PEER

  The stupid hound! There he takes to his heels

  With his tongue lolling out. He’ll be finely sold.

  It delights me to humbug an ass like that.

  He to give himself airs, and to lord it forsooth!

  He’s a mighty lot, truly, to swagger about!

  He’ll scarcely grow fat at his present trade;—

  He’ll soon drop from his perch with his whole apparatus.—

  H’m, I’m not over-safe in the saddle either;

  I’m expelled, one may say, from self-owning nobility.118

  [A shooting star is seen; he nods after it.]

  Greet all friends from Peer Gynt, Brother Starry-Flash!

  To flash forth, to go out, and be naught at a gulp—

  [Pulls himself together as though in terror, and goes deeper in among the

  mists; stillness for awhile; then he cries:]

  Is there no one, no one in all the whirl,—

  In the void no one, and no one in heaven—!

  [He comes forward again further down, throws his hat upon the ground,

  and tears at his hair. By degrees a stillness comes over him.]

  So unspeakably poor, then, a soul can go

  Back to nothingness, into the grey of the mist.

  Thou beautiful earth, be not angry with me

  That I trampled thy grasses to no avail.

  Thou beautiful sun, thou hast squandered away

  Thy glory of light in an empty hut.

  There was no one within it to hearten and warm;—

  The owner, they tell me, was never at home.

  Beautiful sun and beautiful earth,

  You were foolish to bear and give light to my mother.

  The spirit is niggard and nature lavish;

  And dearly one pays for one’s birth with one’s life.—

  I will clamber up high, to the dizziest peak;

  I will look once more on the rising sun,

  Gaze till I’m tired o’er the promised land;

  Then try to get snowdrifts piled up over me.

  They can write above them: “Here No One lies buried”;

  And afterwards,—then——! Let things go as they can.

  CHURCH-GOERS [Singing on the forest path.]

  Oh, morning thrice blest,

  When the tongues of God’s kingdom

  Struck the earth like to flaming steel!

  From the earth to his dwelling

  Now the heirs’ song ascendeth

  In the tongue of the kingdom of God.

  PEER [Crouches as in terror.]

  Never look there! there all’s desert and waste.—

  I fear I was dead long before I died.

  [Tries to slink in among the bushes, but comes upon the cross-roads.]

  THE BUTTON-MOULDER

  Good morning, Peer Gynt! Where’s the list of your sins?

  PEER

  Do you think that I haven’t been whistling and shouting

  As hard as I could?

  THE BUTTON-MOULDER

  And met no one at all?

  PEER

  Not a soul but a tramping photographer.

  THE BUTTON-MOULDER

  Well, the respite is over.

  PEER

  Ay, everything’s over.

  The owl smells the daylight. Just list to the hooting!

  THE BUTTON-MOULDER

  It’s the matin-bell ringing——

  PEER [Pointing.]

  What’s that shining yonder?

  THE BUTTON-MOULDER

  Only light from a hut.

  PEER

  And that wailing sound——?

  THE BUTTON-MOULDER

  But a woman singing.

  PEER

  Ay, there—there I’ll find

  The list of my sins——

  THE BUTTON-MOULDER [Seizing him.]

  Set your house in order!

  [They have come out of the underwood, and are standing near the hut. Day

  is dawning.]

  PEER

  Set my house in order? It’s there! Away!

  Get you gone! Though your ladle were huge as a coffin,

  It were too small, I tell you, for me and my sins.

  THE BUTTON-MOULDER

  Well, to the third cross-road, Peer; but then——

  [Turns aside and goes.]

  PEER [Approaches the hut.]

  Forward and back, and it’s just as far.

  Out and in, and it’s just as strait.

  [Stops.]

  No!—like a wild, an unending lament,

  Is the thought: to come back, to go in, to go home.

  [Takes a few steps on, but stops again.]

  Round about, said the Boyg!

  [Hears singing in the hut.]

  Ah no; this time at least

  Right through, though the path may be never so strait!

  [He runs towards the hut; at the same moment SOLVEIG appears in the

  doorway, dressed for church, with a psalm-book wrapped in a kerchief, and

  a staff in her hand. She stands there erect and mild.]

  PEER [Flings himself down on the threshold.]

  Hast thou doom for a sinner, then speak it forth!

  SOLVEIG

  He is here! He is here! Oh, to God be the praise!

  [Stretches out her arms as though groping for him.]

  PEER

  Cry out all my sins and my trespasses!

  SOLVEIG

  In nought hast thou sinned, oh my own only boy.

  [Gropes for him again, and finds him.]

  THE BUTTON-MOULDER [Behind the house.]

  The sin-list, Peer Gynt?

  PEER

  Cry aloud my crime!

  SOLVEIG [Sits down beside him.]

  Thou hast made all my life as a beautiful song.

  Blessëd be thou that at last thou hast come!

  Blessëd, thrice blessëd our Whitsun-morn meeting!

  PEER

  Then I am lost!

  SOLVEIG

  There is one that rules all things.

  PEER [Laughs.]

  Lost! Unless thou canst answer riddles.

  SOLVEIG

  Tell me them.

  PEER

  Tell them! Come on! To be sure!

  Canst thou tell where Peer Gynt has been since we parted?

  SOLVEIG

  Been?

  PEER

  With his destiny’s seal on his brow;

  Been, as in God’s thought he first sprang forth!

  Canst thou tell me? If not, I must get me home,—

  Go down to the mist-shrouded regions.

  SOLVEIG [Smiling.]

  Oh, that riddle is easy.

  PEER

  Then tell what thou knowest!

  Where was I, as myself, as the whole man, the true man?

  Where was I, with God’s sigil upon my brow?

  SOLVEIG

  In my faith, in my hope, and in my love.119

  PEER [Starts back.]

  What sayest thou——? Peace! These are juggling words.